The Sugar Creek Gang Digs for TreasureHutchens, Paul
General
The Sugar Creek Gang Digs for Treasure
Hutchens, Paul
Adventure and adventurers -- Juvenile fiction; Christian life -- Juvenile fiction; Treasure troves -- Juvenile fiction
All of us leaned closer, and I held it as close to the smoking and
flickering candle as I could, so we could see it better, when Poetry
gasped again and said, “Hey! It’s getting plainer. Look!”
And Poetry was right. Right in front of our eyes as I held the crazy
looking lines close to the candle, the different lines began to be
clearer, although they still looked like water marks.
Dragonfly turned as white as a sheet, with his eyes almost bulging out
of his head. “There’s a-a-a- _ghost_ in here!” He whispered the words
in such a ghost-like voice that it seemed like there might be one.
For a jiffy I was as weak as a cat, and my hands holding the paper were
trembly so, I nearly dropped it. In fact, as quick as a flash, Poetry
grabbed my hand that had the paper in it and pulled it away from the
candle or it might have touched it and caught fire.
Whatever was going on, didn’t make sense. My brain sort of whirled and
I sniffed again and thought of something dead, and then of the writing
that was on the paper and hadn’t been before, and about Dragonfly’s
idea that there was a ghost in the old cabin, and I wished I was
outside in the rain running lickety-sizzle for camp, and getting there
right away.
But it was Poetry who solved the problem for us by saying, “It’s
_invisible ink_, I’ll bet you. Its being in Bill’s pocket next to his
body made it warm, and now the heat from the candle is bringing out
what was written on it.”
It took only a jiffy to decide Poetry was right, and as we all looked
at that crazy drawing, we knew we’d found a map of some kind, and that
if we could understand it, and follow it, we would find the kidnapper’s
ransom money.
Poetry took out his pencil and because the lines weren’t any too plain
in some places, he started to trace them, then he gasped and whistled
and said, “Hey, it’s a map of some kind!”
When he got through tracing it, we saw that it was a map of the
territory up here, with the different places named, such as the Indian
cemetery, the firewarden’s cabin, the boathouse, two summer resorts,
and the different roads and lanes running from one to another, also the
names of the different lakes on one of which we had our camp.
We all crowded around the table, looking over Poetry’s shoulders, and
feeling mysterious and also a little bit scared, but not much ’cause I
was remembering that the kidnapper was locked up in jail, and couldn’t
get out.
“What’s that ‘X’ there in the middle for?” my Man Friday wanted to
know, and Poetry said, “That’s where we initiated you,” and there was a
mischievous grin in his duck-like voice.
“WHAT?” I said, beginning to get a let-down feeling.
Dragonfly burst out with a savage sigh, and said, “I might have known
there wasn’t any mystery. You made that map yourself.” And was thinking
the same sad thing, and said so, but Poetry shushed us and said, “Don’t
be funny; that’s where Bill and I found the little Ostberg girl.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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